Wrote this a long time ago. Too short for an article:
Perverted - Hentai in Japanese. But the word pervert means
deviation from normal or accepted. So, how can all guys be
perverts?

Did you ever notice that the sex scene in the movie is generally
at about the same realative place as the guitar solo in a song?

Training
Updated: 2009-06-19

I seriously don't think anyone trains very much. I rather get the impression that they
build ships, take them out and go fight although I very much could be wrong. Myself I think that training firing your
guns accuracy would be essential. The biggest hurdle is controlling your ship
so that you can accurately place shots on enemy ships. In order to do this,
controlling and aiming your guns has to be an automatic process. The only way
to get this process automatic is to train with static and moving targets.

Static targets are simple. Buoys could be made into targets pretty easily. Shore
targets can be set up. Styrofoam would work well. Come to think of it Styrofoam
paper plates would make excellent targets. Holes would be immediately visible and
would punch through generally with a visual affect for confirmation of hit. The
obvious problem is cleaning up the bits of Styrofoam.

Moving targets would be tougher. Perhaps rig up a model boat with a Styrofoam
plate above it and set it doing wide circles, or bring a friend and have him/her
try to evade your guns.

I just thought of a problem. The actual real life targets are at or below the
water line. I'm going to need to train to sink ships, not just hit targets sitting
on their decks. I should probably paint the targets in the grey, black, red
target scheme.

A very good training scheme would be to use a real ship for targeting. A convoy
ship could be used. Turns could be taken between shooting and avoiding with two people. Perhaps
an invincible ship could be used. Take a fast RC boat, cut a larger Styrofoam
hull that it fits down into. Paint it appropriately and have at. Another
idea is to tow the hull behind a commercial RC boat. It would need to be ballasted
so that the hull was below waterline to shot at.

Buoy targets could have a sheet of wood that is held vertically and extends
below the waterline to an appropriate depth. Try using a bell on a tower to
indicate hits. You could even give the sheet a mock up of a ship. Each end could
be moored to keep it from spinning. With a few of these targets placed about a
pond you could make runs shooting them and get better until you could do it at
full speed.

A more advanced or alternate idea could detect shock and electronically light
up some LEDs on a hit. This is more complex than the bell, or bells, but could
work better. Bells are simpler, but might not work well.

On looking at this drawing I made I think smaller targets are better or at least
having a variety. This type of target is not going to register where you shot
it very well. So perhaps having a large battleship size target would be good
for getting used to approaching that size of target, but shooting at fishing
boats is going to get your accuracy up.